The musings of a madman...

As the year winds down, there are a great many of you who are scribing out your new years’ resolutions. Statistics have shown that 91.8738% (<- the arbitrariness of that number shows that I do my research on these… Trust me, I’m a doctor!) of those resolutions will fail. I am not one to make resolutions at the beginning of the year, I fly through life by the seat of my pants and make irrational decisions to keep shit interesting. However! As a well-established connoisseur (yes, I spelled that right first time without spellcheck) of mistake-making, I am here today to explain and work with you on how to properly fashion your resolutions. First of all, lose the Kanye line “aim for the stars, so even if you fail you land on a cloud” line of thinking. Aiming too high is where people set themselves for failure right out of the gate. Anyone who would PLAN for failure likely has more deeply underlying issues that need to be addressed, and unfortunately I am not THAT type of doctor.

Time for closure... I am convinced that while Spike Lee Flicks, adapted for the current market, would be a critical success, in that most movie reviewers are – pretend to be – at least DECENTLY objective when looking into these things. If Spike Lee’s name would be good enough to get the movie onto enough screens nation/worldwide, he would make enough money to cover production and make profit enough to continue doing him, but they would SURELY not be landslide success-level blockbusters. “why,” you ask? Black audiences these days tend to run away from being told about themselves. It seems that they would more often rather be told how to feel, be it feeling sorry for themselves, to hate their own or just when and how to cry. White audiences often don’t understand “black” issues, even if they feed you the ‘I have tons of black friends’ line ad-infinitum. The days of PAYING to be taught some shit died in college to a great many people of all races. You wanna teach me some shit, you need

picking up where we left off, now we will discuss the next of the mentioned Spike Lee Flicks... Do the Right Thing (1989) This movie deals directly with the multiple plights of the residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood on what happens to be the hottest day of the year. The major theme dealt with in the movie happens to be race relations, centering around a pizza parlor and the treatment of black patrons, real or perceived... Irony comes from the titling of this movie, as it seems that NOBODY is doing the right thing in the entire movie. [ Phlip note - except Radio Raheem, he could DO no wrong] We have EVERYTHING one could desire in a movie; Public Enemy music serving as damn near the ENTIRE score, Rosie Perez, Rosie Perez' titties, racism, class-based discrimination, hatred of immigrants, disregard for the elderly/mentally challenged, and (best of all) Samuel Leroy 'motherfuckin' Jackson . Besides, who CAN'T love a movie that includes li

While fatly pigging the fuck out eating out with The Katie last Friday night, I had an epiphany. Oddly, I would find that an “epiphany” is not an item on the buffet at Golden Corral… Never mind that though. The burst of thought led to a tweet/FaceBook status update. “What if Spike Lee remade his movies for 2010? What if he made school daze and do the right thing now but not then?” No need to address the couple of responses I got, since this was not a question of the day, except for the one from the homie Simon, who retweeted it as well, which included “ You need to blog this .” Never one to turn down the requests of my two loyal readers (or any of the others I might have scared off by means of not coddling their fragile little egos), here we are… Anyway… I will direct my focus in these posts on the two of Shelton Jackson Lee's movies specifically named, Do the Right Thing and School Daze, and I will take them on one at a time, doing so in the order

I will never understand why people feel the need to join a conversation just to inform everyone involved that they don’t care about the topic at hand. Maybe it’s just me, but ‘I don’t care’ should be a station you go through in action and not statement. If someone is talking about something you do not care about, for one to go out of their way to have to SAY they don’t care is a very out-front suggestion that the topic at hand took up enough real estate in their minds for them to say something about it. In application, this makes untrue the ‘I don’t care’ statement. Perhaps better employed would be ‘I don’t care as much as you do,’ but fact remains that even THAT would have one coming off as a bit of a dick as well, what with the suggestion that ‘what you care about is beneath me’ and all. As ever, argument of sorts will ensue and then people get feelings hurt. And to think how less-than-necessary this would be if people could refer back to the art of shutting up. [ Phlip note – as

Okay, Let’s face it… All of us know at least 4-5 people who are so terribly self-involved that everything done or talked about MUST be turned into a conversation about them. If not directly, eventually… Today, I will deal with two of those individuals. Given this fact, we’re all well aware what a drain it can be to be FORCED to deal with such folks, so I thought to myself “self… we should devise a system in which these people are to be handled as deserved” [ Phlip note – yes I do talk to myself, and you do too, fuckers…] Make note of the word “deserved” in that sentence, as it is not to be understood as “how they feel they deserve,” rather “what in the fuck they have earned. Scene 1… You: “my birthday’s coming up in a couple weeks… We’re gonna have a big party at so-and-so’s house, you should try to come” Them: “oh wow, is it your birthday again already? That means it’s only a few months left til mine.” You: “Yeah, you want the address to the party, you comin’?” Them: “hmm

Yes, this is directly a play on the title of Rick Ross' song Aston Martin Music . Allow me first to apologize... A couple of different "car trouble moments," one of them conspiring towards me meeting my maker but deftly avoided, have had me in position to listen to something other than Sean Price in my own car on the way to and from wherever I should so happen to be headed. That said, I am noticing a pattern (which has likely been in play on “urban” radio for years, but damned if I would know it)… Every third song must include one (or any combination) of either Trey Songz, Drake, Nikki Minaj and/or Rick Ross. Lil Wayne used to employ one of these spots, but a stretch in the pokey downgraded him to once in 5 songs. The constant, here, though is that I STILL feel like we’re being punk’d. [ Phlip note – see, when have I EVER gotten to my point that fast?] I can’t find it in myself to believe a damned word